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If you work off "widely accepted words" when there is disagreeing primary literature, you are probably mediocre.
Sometimes it really is bad and "everybody" can be very wrong, yes. None of us are native English speakers (most don't speak English at all), so these foreign sounding words all look the same, it's a forgivable "offence".
Using Fieldings term to refer to something else is an extra source of confusion which kinda makes the term useless. Nobody knows what the speaker exactly refers no.
It's convenient to have a word for "HTTP API where entities are represented by JSON objects with unique paths, errors are communicated via HTTP status codes and CRUD actions use the appropriate HTTP methods". The term we have for that kind of API is "rest". And that's fine.
2. So just "HTTP API". And that would suffice. Adding "restful" is trying to be extra-smart or fit in if everyone's around an extra-smart.
This doesn't seem like a useful line of conversation, so I will ignore it.
> 2. So just "HTTP API".
No! There are many kinds of HTTP APIs. I've both made and used "HTTP APIs" where HTTP is used as a transport and API semantics are wholly defined by the message types. I've seen APIs where every request is an HTTP POST with a protobuf-encoded request message and every response is a 200 OK with a protobuf-encoded response message (which might then indicate an error). I've seen GraphQL APIs. I've seen RPC-style APIs where every "RPC call" is a POST requset to an endpoint whose name looks like a function name. I've seen APIs where request and response data is encoded using multipart/form-data.
Hell, even gRPC APIs are "HTTP APIs": gRPC uses HTTP/2 as a transport.
Telling me that something is an "HTTP API" tells me pretty much nothing about how it works or how I'm expected to use it, other than that HTTP is in some way involved. On the other hand, if you tell me that something is a "REST API", I already have a very good idea about how to use it, and the documentation can assume a lot of pre-existing context because it can assume that I've used similar APIs before.
Precisely this. The value of words is that they help communicate concepts. REST API or even RESTful API conveys a precise idea. To help keep pedantry in check, Richardson's maturity model provides value.
Everyone manages to work with this. Not those who feel the need to attack people with blanket accusations of mediocrity, though. They hold onto meaningless details.
Most of us are not writing proper Restful APIs because we’re dealing with legacy software, weird requirements the egos of other developers. We’re not able to build whatever we want.
And I agree with the feature article.
I'd go as far as to claim it is by far the dumbest kind, because it has no value, serves no purpose, and solves no problem. It's just trivia used to attack people.
However I'd argue people who use the term to describe it the same as everyone else is the smart one, if you want to refer to the "real" one just add "strict" or "real" in front of it.
I don't think we should dismiss people over drifting definitions and lack of "fountational knowledge".
If my API is supposed to rely on content-type, how many different representations do I need? JSON is a given anymore, and maybe XML, but why not plain text, why not PDF? My job isn't an academic paper, good enough to get the job done is going to have to be good enough.
ur s0 rait, eye d0nt nnno wy ne1 b0dderz tu b3 "proppr"!!!!1!!
</sarcasm>
You are correct that communication is the point. Words do communicate a message. So too does disrespect for propriety: it communicates the message that the person who is ignorant or disrespectful of proper language is either uneducated or immature, and that in turn implies that such a person’s statements and opinions should be discounted if not ignored entirely.
Words and terms mean things. The term ‘REST’ was coined to mean something. I contend that the thing ‘REST’ originally denoted is a valuable thing to discuss, and a valuable thing to employ (I could be wrong, but how easy will it be for us to debate that if we can’t even agree on a term for the thing?).
It’s similar to the ironic use of the word ‘literally.’ The word has a useful meaning, there is already the word ‘figuratively’ which can be used to mean ‘not literally’ and a good replacement for the proper meaning of ‘literally’ doesn’t spring to mind: misusing it just decreases clarity and hinders communication.
> If my API is supposed to rely on content-type, how many different representations do I need? JSON is a given anymore, and maybe XML, but why not plain text, why not PDF?
Whether something is JSON or XML is independent of the representation — they are serialisations (or encodings) of a representation. E.g. {"type": "foo","id":1}, <foo id="1"/>, <foo><id>1</id></foo> and (foo (id 1)) all encode the same representation.
There is no such thing as "misusing language". Language changes. It always does.
Maybe you grew up in an area of the world where it's really consistent everywhere, but in my experience I'm going to have a harder time understanding people even two to three villages away.
Because language always changes.
Words mean a particular thing at a point in time and space. At another one, they might mean something completely different. And that's fine.
You can like it or dislike it, that's up to you. However, I'd say every little bit of negative thoughts in that area only serve to make yourself miserable, since humanity and language at large just aren't consistent.
And that's ok. Be it REST, literally or even a normal word such as 'nice', which used to mean something like 'foolish'.
Again, language is inconsistent by default and meanings never stay the same for long - the more a terminus technicus gets adapted by the wider population, the more its meaning gets widened and/or changed.
One solution for this is to just say "REST in its original meaning" when referring to what is now the exception instead of the norm.
Really? What if somebody else wants to get some information to you? How do you know what to work on?